Kadifekale

I first noticed Kadifekale (“velvet fortress” in Turkish) on our first ferry ride in İzmir, on October 3rd. See it?

It’s that castley looking thing on the hill with the massive flag. 

I think it’s the highest flag in the city. Quite a distinction for a city full of flags.   

I didn’t know what it was at the time but the Lonely Planet and Trip Advisor were most helpful in explaining the history of it and how to get there. Unfortunately, both sources also mentioned that the surrounding area is a little rough. Some commenters even said to exercise extreme caution when visiting the fortress, lest you be pickpocketed or worse. So I wasn’t exactly champing at the bit to visit.

But last week at church a very nice man asked me if I’d been to see it yet and I was embarrassed to say that I hadn’t. He actually recommended walking to it, and didn’t say anything about it being in a sketchy neighbourhood. He said the views of the city were terrific. So today, the kids and I headed up there on the city bus.

We had a little talk about safety, though I downplayed my own concerns because Sebastian reacted pretty strongly to an attempted pickpocketing that Tobias experienced one night in a crowded street in İstanbul. Sebastian actually saw the fellow unzip Toby’s backpack and thwarted the attempt by telling Toby about it. The pickpocket ran away. Not really a big deal, but enough to rattle a 7-year-old. I made a point of showing Sebastian that I wasn’t taking my wallet with me, and that I’d keep my camera around my neck and we would be there in the middle of the daytime.

Of the few people who said on Trip Advisor that Kadifekale was dangerous, I wondered how many were simply reacting to being in an area that is primarily inhabited by Roma people. It’s easy to feel like a place is unsafe just because you find yourself in an ethnic or socio-economic minority if you’re not used to that.

When we got on the bus, my suspicions that there was some xenophobia was behind some of the internet comments I’d read increased: most people on the bus seemed to be Roma. The first dangerous thing that happened was that a young man got up to offer the children his seat. We were terrified, but what could we do? The children accepted the seat. Our fear increased as, stop after stop, people kept leaving their seats to offer them to older people, women carrying babies and suchlike. By the time we reached our stop, we were sitting comfortably together, looking at the view out to the narrow streets filled with produce stalls, hanging laundry, kids with backpacks. We were paralyzed with fear.

After we left the bus, we headed up the hill to the fortress. Along the way, some men LOOKED AT US. We just kept breathing and walked quickly. We arrived at the fortress unmolested, thank heavens.

The fortress itself is nothing particularly special, for Turkey. Compared to Göreme, Ephesus, Hierapolis, or any given street corner in İstanbul, it’s not particularly historically important or well-preserved or beautiful. But if we had such a historical site in Canada we would be pretty excited. The site was chosen by Alexander the Great in the 4th century AD, after all.

We really enjoyed wandering around the peaceful, quiet site. There were only a few people there, mostly kids playing and mums watching them. Some women were gathering a certain type of weed that was growing in the grass, I’m guessing to make tea, but I wasn’t brave enough to ask them. We saw five foreigners, which is a lot for one day in İzmir. We never see any in Güzelyalı .

I tried to take my customary swings shot of the kids, but alas…

It was incredible to see how massive İzmir is. I think it’s about the size of Toronto. It just goes on and on.

I was delighted to get another look at the head of Atatürk, which we’d seen in the dark from our taxi the night we arrived in İzmir. They really like that guy.

After a walk round and a good look at all the vista points, we were ready to go. We would have liked to have a çay, but the çay bahçesi (tea garden) we saw near the entrance was completely empty and all the chairs were stacked on top of the tables. Many tourist-oriented things are only open in the summer, so this wasn’t very mysterious. But I did want to take a quick peek at the view from the çay bahçesi, so we walked in. There were no signs, and no people….no wait, there was a guy manning the WC, collecting the 1TL fees. Hmm. Then I noticed that a few tables had their chairs down. Then another guy walked into a little kiosk which looked like, once upon a time, it may have been used to serve food and drink. It couldn’t hurt. I walked over and asked “Çay var mı ?” (Is there tea?) Oh yes, how many do you want, was the answer and so we sat down and had tea, as you do everywhere in Turkey, even in places where it seems like there is no tea available.

The kids compared the little garden with the vista to Seraglio Point in Istanbul, where we’d also had tea. We couldn’t claim that it was just as good (Bosphorus views do beat all), but considering that a pot of tea goes for 25TL at Seraglio Point and our three glasses cost 3TL, we felt we were getting a good bargain.

Afterwards, we all felt happy that we’d had the courage to visit a part of İzmir we’ve never been to, and to get out and enjoy another balmy, Aegean late-November day.